These are my thoughts:
If so, it’s kind of working but also exploding in his face. He’s going after Bezos, Apple, China, all of tech, etc. They have to bend the knee to him to get the tariffs to go away.
This is how putin built his empire and took from the wealthy. Again, this is the stupider version, but I think it’s true.
The funny thing is that their two great allies — the rule of law and their money — won’t serve them at all when it collapses.
I mean, that is true. Also what is true is that these people will be the ones who determine wealth afterwards, and those who help can still come out on the other end in a class they were previously below. There are a lot of people out there that will just go with it. Even trained combat forces. Because they are so internally structured to accept hierarchy. This isn’t like a nuclear war wiping out most of humanity type collapse. This will be more like a USSR collapse. Those who know how the greater system works internationally, and who already had resources to invest in the turnover, now are the top dogs. It was people who were already elites, the highest order of the international mafia, and the higher echelon of the security/intelligence forces, like the KGB (though, I guess those qualify as elites), are the oligarchs over russia today.
I ultimately hope this doesn’t happen, but if it does, I would enjoy seeing their PMCs turn on therm. However I also fear the resulting warlord system, or unified martial state, that could come of that, possibly more.
I’m no expert but I think a lot of warlordish thugs are the ones who oligarched their way out of the USSR’s collapse, not a bunch of doughy tech-bros.
Jeff may have shaved his head and Mark may do BJJ, but when there’s no penalty for murder I think those won’t do much against their body guards’ 9mm.
While that is true, and the absolute apex of oligarchy is ex-kgb, and the head of the mafia, there were a lot of elite, that had lots of, previously illegal, financial stuff going on abroad, and had many professional, and diplomatic contacts formed from years of working with other countries. They also swooped in and bought up massive stocks from people who didn’t really understand their value, in the worst of the instability, but did so more from afar, until things started to calm a bit, then they moved back in, and started operating at home.
What could be different this time is that I don’t think Europe will be in the mood to shield their assets in the meantime. Neither will China.
Eh, I will believe it when I see it. If this situation were to occur, I predict you would see a lot of bluster, and wind, blowing smoke around, about this, mean time the banks are all just doing their thing, making money, dealing with whoever.
My reading is that everyday europeans and european politicians are stunned by the Trump tariff situation, threats of invading Canada and Greenland, and are particularly furious at American tech oligarchs. They’ve already begun transitioning away from anything tainted with American tech. And it isn’t new — they’ve been dragging it out in court with Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta for years.
Maybe they’ll find someone friendly like Orban’s Hungary or a tax haven micronation. That’s not someone I would count on to safeguard billions of dollars of assets, though.
remember, even the Nazis found safe havens for their wealth. So, if we don’t get a neo-nuremberg trial, I have little doubt their money will be safe somewhere. Even if they do, the places that stashed it will just enrich themselves with it.